Luka's Story Just Be Friends
by Miss Katyana
Summary: Luka's tale of hidden heartbreaks and feelings that inspired her music video, Just Be Friends.


A/N: i decided to do a story based on Luka's song Just Be Friends. i have no idea why i picked Jordan as her lover. it was just a random name anyway. please read and review!

Disclaimer: I do not own Vocaloid

Luka's Story~

I never expected it to end like this. My heart aches like it has been pierced with thorns-probably the same thorns from the roses I have in my room. I used to love those roses but now, I feel like ripping the scarlet petals apart and throwing them into the air like confetti. I want to remove nearly everything in my room that reminds me of _him. _I doubt anyone will ever know how heartbroken and empty I feel now. The world is as black as the silk dress I am wearing and everything is cloaked in gloomy shadows. I try to pick up my guitar and find my voice but somehow, I couldn't sing. Not even one song. My throat felt dry and it was mostly because I spent so much of my time crying. My cheeks are still damp and I wondered if perhaps my tears will never dry but stay there forever like some permanent tattoo of grief.

Remember when I said I wanted to remove _nearly_ everything that reminds me of him? Well, of course I wouldn't waste my time burning every single picture we took together or destroying all the presents he gave me. No, that's not my style. It's ok, I guess, to still have a picture of someone who you used to love by your bedside because sometimes, you'll just feel lonely and you might want to look at him for a while. Besides, I would definitely miss seeing his sweetly smiling face…Without even realizing it, I began twisting the silver ring on my finger that he gave me last Christmas. It was the best present I ever received from him and even after all the tears, shouts and cruel words we gave to each other, I still couldn't find the heart to take off the ring.

I slipped the silver ring off my finger and held it up to the golden sunlight streaming through my glass windows. I loved that ring so much that I kept it in such good condition. There wasn't even a scratch on its shiny surface. I pressed the ring to my lips gently and felt the tears well up in my eyes once more. I remembered him teasing me that cold December night why we both had to wear our rings on our ring fingers instead of our middle, like most couples do.

"We're not even married yet, Luka." He said teasingly but there was a tiny smile on his face.

"Someday, we will." I blurted out and there it was; the smallest smile of hope flitting across his lips. It matched the one on mine exactly. The night was cold but our hearts were warm and bright as the Christmas lights behind us because we had each other.

And that was all that mattered.

But I wasn't so sure now. I could still hear his harsh words in my ears and feel the tears on his face. I always thought that it was cowardly for a boy to cry but he proved me wrong. He was brave enough to cry in front of me and that was because he loved me too much. I picked up the wilted wreath of flowers lying in the corner of my room. Scattered around it were little pieces of glass and a single broken red thread. i picked up the wreath and placed it gingerly on my head, trying to relive the magical feeling I had when we were both wearing the wreath of flowers pretending to be two young newly-weds…except we were never married and we will never will. Now all I could feel was loss when I wore that wreath but I could still smell the faint scent of roses from it. Apparently, not all of the flowers were wilted.

The red thread gave a different feeling. I still wore it around my pinky finger after we broke up like some token of a battle. In a way, the red string of Fate was far worse than any battle scar. It reminded me that we were never meant to be and that someone had cut the string that connected us. I remembered again that when we first met at high school during a carnival, he had bought me a red balloon and we held hands for the first time. The red string from the balloon had wound itself around our fingers like it was binding us together. We had been so happy… but who had cut the string in the first place?

The strangest thing was I don't even know what made our relationship fall apart. We just didn't seem happy together anymore but the thing I could remember most vividly was a chair commercial on the TV. It stood out in my mind, forcing me to relive every single detail of that day: I was sitting on the sofa with him with his hand resting lightly on mine. But although we were together, I felt as if we were actually a million mile apart. His ruffled black hair was messy as always and he had his trademark ear phones around his neck. I still remembered what we were both wearing that day. He was wearing a white shirt that matched mine and black pants. I had my pink hair twisted up into a knot and my favorite book balanced on my knee. Suddenly, a chair commercial came on the TV with two gilded mod black-and-white chairs rotating slowly, facing the screen, turning on each other's backs and facing different directions but never close together. A strange expression came over Jordan and I felt rather empty too watching that commercial. I didn't know why but that commercial was almost like a bad omen, a harbinger of things to come.

That was when Jordan's hand left mine and I felt a small crack appear in my heart. I didn't know why but suddenly he was crying. Tears rolled down his face and when I asked him what was wrong he wouldn't answer me. But we never held hands anymore after that day. Damn that chair commercial. I don't usually swear but grief can do weird things to you sometimes.

It was only after the break up that I realized that both the chairs represent us, separated, and no longer sitting together.

I pressed the _replay_ button on my video player and images after images flashed across the screen like a slide show on fast forward. I pressed the fast-forward button over and over again until his face blurred into the chaotic, swirling pictures we took together. There was that summer evening when he gave me a ride home on his bicycle, the day we lay in the grass together and just stared up at the sky, and of course, the Christmas carnival. I couldn't help smiling sadly when I relived those memories.

It was getting late and I decided to take a walk to the park. The sky was streaked pink and gold but in the distance, I could see the dark night approaching. I didn't have much time.

It was quiet in the park and all I could hear was the soft creaking of the rusted swings when the winds blew. A few rose petals lay at my feet and I wondered who else could be ripping up flowers today. Usually, when I was with Jordan at the park, I felt magical as if I could simply spread my arms and wings would lift me up into the air with him. When he was holding my hand, I felt like I could do anything. Sing, fly, dance or play an impromptu guitar solo…anything.

But I was alone now and the wind chilled me. I wished for the tenth time that I wore a jacket over my sleeveless black dress. My pink hair whipped around me and when I placed my hand up on my head, I could feel the wreath of flowers I had forgotten to take off. For some reason, I didn't rip it off but I let it stay there for a while. It was kind of symbolic, in a way. Shadows lengthened and stretched towards me. I reached into my pocket and took out a single white paper airplane. It wasn't much. There was nothing written on it or decorated on it either. I had only written a single name in black ink on the left wing of the airplane:

JORDAN

I closed my eyes, took a deep breath and lightly kissed the paper plane with his name on it. I marveled at the strangeness of life. Sometimes, things that started out so wonderful at first could end up sad, broken and twisted out of shape. Letting go and forgetting Jordan was going to be one of the hardest things I have ever done. After all, who will I turn to now to tell my jokes or share my happy moments with after he's gone? My hands feel empty without his fingers twined through mine but I have to be strong to go on, to move on without looking back.

I hesitated for a moment but finally, I lifted the paper plane high above my head and flung it up towards the evening sky. It started to float down towards the ground at first but a sudden gust of wind lifted it up and sent the paper plane flying high up into the sky. I watched it spiral and soar further and further away from me until it was merely a white speck in the distance. I wondered where my plane would land or who might discover it and read the name scrawled on its wings.

_Sayonara. _

I decided to stop wondering. Life goes on. I used to think that saying Jordan's name out loud might hurt me even more but I guess I was wrong. There was nothing wrong with saying his name and for some reason, it gave me a sense of peace and security like he really was by my side again, holding my hand. Suddenly overwhelmed by the knowledge of just how much I had lost, tears began to gather up in my eyes again. I began to realize how much more difficult it would be to forget him. My head hurt from all those chaotic thoughts swirling around my mind. I had really lost someone precious and I might probably never see him again…

But as I was swiping a hand over my streaming eyes, I heard faint footsteps in the park. Instantly, I felt a cold shiver of fear run down my spine. It was getting rather dark and the sky was turning a dark, bruised purple and a few cold stars were poking through but I knew it wasn't night yet, at least not for another half an hour.

Still, I was scared. I was all by myself in the park and the fact that someone else, a complete stranger was there with me too made me uneasy. Slowly, shakily, I turned my head around to see who was behind me. I was ready to run if I had to. Sure, the flimsy heels I wore were definitely not suitable to help me get away but no matter, I would run barefoot if my life was really in danger. I've done it before.

I expected to see a shadowy stalker, a drunken old man or a dirty tramp standing behind me but I was in for a surprise.

The boy standing behind me was…Jordan.

You couldn't tell who was more surprised to see each other. I wondered how long he had been standing behind me or whether he had just arrived. Jordan looked as breath-taking as the day we first met. Every detail about him was exactly the same I remembered: his soft black hair was ruffled and his eyes were the unique shade of purple-black I loved so much. His eyes reminded me of onyx jewels that could sometimes be a very light purple when he was in a good mood or a deep black when he wasn't. We haven't seen each other for three days and now we meet in the park again under the strangest circumstances. Was fate playing with us? I stared into his emotionless eyes and he did the same to mine.

Jordan held a red balloon in his right hand, which was strange. He wore his favorite hooded black jacket over a white shirt and black pants. He once let me wear that jacket once when I left mine at home one chilly school day. I wondered if he still remembered.

I sort of knew what the balloon symbolized because it looked exactly like the one he bought for me at the carnival the day we first met; the one that tied us together with the red string of fate. He gazed at me silently for a moment, lips set in a straight line. Then, slowly, before my very eyes, he let go of the balloon. The string slipped from his fingers and the balloon shot up towards the sky like my airplane did. This was his way of saying goodbye, to show that he was indeed trying to move on. It just seemed so ironic that we both had to do it in the exact same place.

None of us wore our red threads anymore but I noticed the glint of silver on his right hand. He was still wearing the ring on his ring finger like I was. I felt my throat close up at that small gesture of love. We could no longer be together as lovers but the ring showed that he too had a hard time letting go. He still cared.

Jordan let out a small, sad smile and said in an impossibly quiet voice, "Hey, Luka."

"Hi, Jordan, it's been a while." I felt like I was talking to a complete stranger but it still felt nice to hear his voice again. My lips twitched into a small smile.

He reached out his hand hesitantly as if he wanted to touch my hair, to make sure I wasn't just a figment of his imagination or a mirage that could disappear in a blink of an eye. And as if it understood, the wind blew curls of my pink hair towards his outstretched fingers. When they brushed against his fingers, he smiled a little as if he remembered something pleasant.

"Do you remember the first time I talked about your hair?"

Now it was my turn to smile. "You thought I dyed it."

"Yeah, sorry about that, but you didn't dye it. It's your original hair color. Bit of an embarrassing shock for me."

How could I ever forget about my hair? The girls, guys and teachers alike all asked me if I dyed it and I was getting rather tired of telling that it was actually my natural hair color. Some girls teased me of course because of my bright pink hair but when I met Jordan, he just told me they were jealous. He thought I dyed it too at first but when I told him it was my original hair color, he smiled and said, "I think you look beautiful."

There was that awkward silence between us again when we both didn't know what to say. Suddenly, an intense look of sadness crossed Jordan's face.

"You hate me, don't you?" he asked softly.

"No, I don't," even as I said it, I knew in my heart that it was the truth, "it's just that we can't be the two star-crossed people we were before anymore. That's all."

"Actually, I feel glad when you said you don't hate me." Jordan's face turned red. "I still want to be friends, Luka."

I smiled ruefully. "I know, Maybe we should…just be friends."

We looked at each other. Now that we were "just friends", I wondered how things would work out for us. People would notice the lack of holding hands and talking together. Jordan would be a very good friend to me, I'm certain, but I somehow know that it would be best to just forget about him and move on.

I might find the strength to do that someday but not today. There was still a flicker of connection between me and Jordan and no matter how faint it is, I still want to keep it. At least for a while.

"Still friends?" he smiled sadly.

"Yes, always."

"I…missed you, you know? Whenever I had something strange or funny to talk about, I'd turn around to share it with you but you wouldn't be there. It makes me sad." Jordan cocked his head slightly at me.

"I know, because I feel the same way. But things can't be the same anymore, Jordan. You know that."

He shrugged and a cold, blank look came over his normally cheerful face. He pointed at the silver ring on my finger.

"You can throw that away if you want. You have every right to do it anyway. I don't mind."

"I don't want to. You didn't throw yours away either. Why is that so?"

"You tell me, Luka."

I stared at him for a while. The ground felt like it was spinning under my feet but I forced myself on with what I was about to do. I had to let him go, even if it breaks my heart. I kissed my ring gently and said, "Goodbye, Jordan."

He didn't answer me. Then, I just turned and ran out of the park. My heels slowed me down but I didn't look back. I felt grief and loss churning in my heart but no tears came out this time. Sometimes, the hardest choice to make is often the best choice after all. My goodbye to Jordan felt right, like I was finally freeing him from a cage and setting us both free. We could start over again or maybe even find new love…

But of course, we would just be friends.

-LUKA-


End file.
